Doctor Who: Terminus (1983)

A Steve Gallagher script about a leper colony in space, with a macguffin that could threaten the entire universe - it's nicely put-together, but is mostly a traipse around a dark spaceship set, and suffers from some really '80s outfits and hairstyles (Liza Goddard's pirate outfit and hairdo, notably) plus an insufficiently hideous deforming disease for the 'Lazars'. As often on Who in this period, it's cynical about humanity: with a callous, unseen company using slave labour and mistreating sick people for profit, when a medical adjustment actually could deliver a cure. Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) gets sick and, in a bizarrely gratuitous moment, tears off her skirt - but this is her exit show (Gallagher had scripted Romana's departure too) as she opts like several previous companions (Steven in The Savages) to stick with a suffering group who need ongoing help to get their society working (Romana had done much the same). In a sub-plot, Turlough and Tegan bond, though Mark Strickson talks to a crystal and Valentine Dyall without doing much villainy. A sometime Who tendency to play for ridiculously high stakes involves the creation of the universe by a time-travelling ship which had an engine explode producing the big bang and is liable to have the other blow and end everything.

First published in this form here.

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